


Scoutmaster's Child

by Jathis



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Cute, Earl Harlan Week, Family, earl harlan party, earl is a father, mute children - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-16
Updated: 2014-10-16
Packaged: 2018-02-21 11:01:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2465846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jathis/pseuds/Jathis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So Earl has a child...but where did the child come from?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scoutmaster's Child

In the end the Mute Children that had dragged him into the tent and into the other world were not as malevolent as Earl Harlan had originally thought them to be. Sure they had murdered several people and he had in fact lashed out to stop several of them from laying their hands on any of his Scouts but he soon learned that it had only been out of a sense of loneliness and not out of any intent or desire to cause pain and suffering to others. This was in fact a trait that was rare for even the more “normal” citizens of Night Vale, let alone Mute Children from another world who appeared and disappeared whenever they wished.

Once the ceremony had concluded and his vision had cleared, Earl found a large book being pressed into his hands. Empty black eyes stared at him and he could only blink and grip the book a little tighter as the children started to kneel and sit down around him, expecting something. He frowned to himself at first but when he looked down at the book and found that it was in fact a book of faery tales, he found that he could no longer feel any animosity or fear towards the children.

So Earl Harlan opened the book and he started to read.

During his time with the Mute Children, Earl read them numerous different books and told them stories of his own. He taught them how to communicate using sign language and it was through this that he learned their names and some of their secrets and reasons for existing. It was all very confusing and overwhelming and for the most part his brain forced him to forget these secrets to avoid melting out of his ears and corners of his eyes.

He bonded with the children and they treated him as a father figure, asking him for advice and answers about things that children all have a hard time understanding. He taught them how to kill their targets painlessly and he taught them how to hunt the strange beasts that inhabited their world without the risk of being found and hurt. It was just like being a Scoutmaster back home again and Earl found that he missed Night Vale less and less as time went by.

And there was Zane. Zane was the smallest of the children there and Earl found that they especially liked to stay by his side, their small hand clutching onto his shorts. He had noticed several times the way that the larger children often ignored Zane, leaving them alone while going off hunting. During these times he would place a hand on their shoulder, wiping away thick black tears from their eyes as he assured them that they were safe with him.

He still wasn’t sure why the oak door had suddenly appeared before him one day. All he knew for sure was that one of the older children reached out and opened it, revealing to Earl that the door led right back into his own home. He was hesitant to go through however, signing to the children that he was worried about who would help them learn how to tie knots and build fires properly but he was assured by the older children that they had learned a lot from the Scoutmaster and that they would teach the others as he had done.

With this in mind, Earl faced the door that led back home to Night Vale. He was about to step through when he felt a familiar hand gripping onto the bottom of his shorts and he blinked and looked down to find Zane clutching onto him once again, a single tear rolling down their cheek.

Slowly Earl smiled, pulling Zane’s hand off of his shorts with a shake of his head. “Here…” he said, taking their hand into his own. The other children had backed away, forming a semi-circle around the pair and the door. They waited, silent as ever with their black eyes and unmoving lips. “Ready to go home?”

Zane nodded and Earl walked through the door, with his child.


End file.
